


Don't judge a Book by its cover

by meet_the_girl_who_can



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Booker's past decisions come back to haunt him and no-one is surprised, Fluff and Crack, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mild Language, POV Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Post-Canon, Redeemed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, can be read as book of nile sort of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25916035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meet_the_girl_who_can/pseuds/meet_the_girl_who_can
Summary: “You fraud! You complete,” thump, “and utter,” thwack, “scoundrel!”Booker wakes to Nile hitting him with a pillow, standing over him like an avenging angel. Blinking up at her blearily, he holds his hands up in hopes of placating and fending off another hit. “Nile? S’matter?” Adjusting to consciousness reveals the other three standing in the doorway to his bedroom, just watching and grinning evilly.Ah, Christ.Nile finds out Booker used to be a forger.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman
Comments: 20
Kudos: 523





	Don't judge a Book by its cover

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying to write Old Guard fic that is serious but the silly, cracky stuff on tumblr keeps making me laugh and wanting silly team antics, so this is pure crack again. Booker was in exile, but it didn't stick and he's back with everyone for a bit of downtime when it gets a little ridiculous. 
> 
> Based on this tumblr post and commentary: https://tovezza.tumblr.com/post/626002427109326848/takiki16-tovezza-considering-the-canon-fact
> 
> Enjoy!

“You fraud! You **complete** ,” thump, “and **utter** ,” thwack, “ _scoundrel!”_

Booker wakes to Nile hitting him with a pillow, standing over him like an avenging angel. Blinking up at her blearily, he holds his hands up in hopes of placating and fending off another hit. “Nile? S’matter?” Adjusting to consciousness reveals the other three standing in the doorway to his bedroom, just watching and grinning evilly.

Ah, Christ.

They’re buried deep in Carcassonne, France at the house that Nile had been given about three days ago, for her first birthday since joining them. It’s light and airy with a lovely garden and big enough that they each have their own bedroom.

“What’ve you done now Book?” asks Andy, peering over Joe and Nicky’s shoulders with unguarded interest at Nile’s method of assault.

“I haven’t done anything to anybody!” he protests, then flushes under Andy’s direct gaze. They all know what he’s done. “Lately” he acquiesces, staring at the bedstead.

“Exactly!” Nile cries indignantly and hits him again, the pillow glancing off his forearm.

“Nile, tesoro, why don’t we let Booker wake up properly while you help me plate up and then you can glower at him from across the patio, yes?” Nicky suggests, because Nicky is a prince among men, Booker thinks as he watches the other man stride into the room and tugs the pillow away gently to drop it onto Booker’s legs. Joe and Andy were just content to let her kill him. Death by pillow, that’d be a new one.

“You’re entitled to a last meal before your execution” Joe surmises with a dark chuckle.

“Fine” she deflates as Nicky steers her out of range with a hand around her shoulders, then, “This is not over Sebastién!”

She has never ever called him Sebastien. Merde, merde, **merde.**

“What did I do?” he begs of Joe and Andy who have stayed put, running his hand through his hair. If they reinstate his exile –

The two of them slip into the room as Nile and Nicky leave and cross the room to sit on either side of the big sleigh bed, as Booker pulls himself up into a sitting position.

Joe reaches out and squeezes Booker’s knee because he too has a heart bigger than Booker deserves, though he shares a knowing glance with Andy, “I don’t know exactly, but” and he sounds as if he’s trying not to laugh, “she came back from town muttering about immoral immortals destroying historical integrity”

“Take that as you will” Andy adds, beautiful and gleeful in the late morning light. Andy loves cryptic shit and conspiracy theories (especially if she knows they’re horseshit) so if anyone knows what’s going on it’ll be her, innocent act be damned. Because like Nile, she is the only one of them fully dressed, because she was out last night and wasn’t back when the other four had gone to bed. Meaning, she’s not likely to be any more helpful either, Booker thinks as he stares down at Joe’s bare feet.

**_Merde._ **

Booker groans. This isn’t going to end well. He has _no_ idea what it’s about, but at least the others had interceded, so it can’t be that bad, right? He leans across to take a sip from the water glass on the bedside cabinet, and curses his newfound efforts at sobriety “So she tried to smother me?”

“You should be so lucky!” Nile shouts from downstairs, then falls quiet again at Nicky’s low reprove, but it just sets the other two off laughing.

It’s going to be a long day.

****

Now, Booker’s no coward, and yes he deserted but that’s because it was the middle of Russia and nobody had thought anything fucking through, and Napoleon was a greedy shit and he’d had enough and just wanted to go _home_ rather than being hungry and sore and fucking freezing all the time.

But anyway, he’s not a coward. He’s hardy. He’s done starvation before, missing breakfast is small potatoes.

 _Don’t think about potatoes_ he chastises himself.

Which is the reason he sits on the edge of the bed and wilfully ignores the delicious scents wafting up the stairs. He’s not a coward, he’s just not hungry either, his stomach just thinks his throat’s been cut.

“Oh, Putain! Putain de putain de merde, Nicky espèce de fils de pute gourmet” he hisses, jumping up and flinging himself out the door and down the stairs. Maybe if he scarfs his food down fast enough, Nile won’t be able to catch him. Although. That would probably hurt Nicky’s feelings and it’s _Nicky_ and ‘fucking, fucking what the fuck did I _ever_ _do_ ” he mutters, clattering down the stairs trying to remember what he might have conceivably done besides the obvious Merrick Incident which this is blissfully unrelated to (and there’s a lot, really) to have tainted Carcassonne’s ‘historical integrity', whatever the fuck _that_ meant.

He trudges out into the garden and sure enough, Nile is glaring at him from her seat, directly across from the one left vacant for him, those _assholes,_ spearing a tomato viciously with her fork and popping it into her mouth. It’s rather adorable, which is definitely not what she’s going for, so he keeps his mouth wisely shut and accepts the plate of kedgeree Nicky hands him.

“So,” Nile starts after he’s been lulled into a false sense of security and oh fuck, here we go, “I didn’t know Joe wasn’t the only artist in the family”

“Er,” Booker glances to Andy for help but she just snorts over the rim of her glass and looks away. But Nile’s nowhere finished yet, tone terribly calm and conversational. 

“I mean, you know how much I love art, I was looking at maybe getting my Masters and then you guys go and give me this place” her tone softens and her gaze sweeps the table, “ _for my birthday”_

There’s a pause of soft, sweet smiles all round as they remembered how three days ago, Nile had arrived from Paris thinking that had been her birthday gift, only to be presented with the keys and told that the house, which they’d had fitted with mod-cons and its entire contents including a small library of first editions, a Manet and one of Da Vinci’s notebooks were all hers.

Her face hardens once more as her gaze returns to Booker “And I was digging around and found some stuff in a cupboard so I thought I’d get my Antiques Roadshow on and have some valuations done just for kicks. So I took it all down to Monsieur Lachaise in town.” Her eyes return to Booker, and it's times like this that Booker believes this sweet kid was a marine. “Including this”

She reaches down by her feet and retrieves a box, which she sets carefully in front of her empty plate and withdraws a beautiful porcelain figurine of a peacock. Probably Meissen, the 1700s.

“Lachaise was desperate to buy this thing. Pawed all over it, under the light, praised the condition, the clarity of the paint job. I had to turn down fifteen grand Booker” she tells him like he should know why that’s a bad thing.

“Fifteen huh?”

“I think the guy was trying not to cry. I got scared he wouldn’t let me leave the shop”

“What?” the three men ask in a chorus, breakfast forgotten.

“Not like that!” Nile protests. “He wasn’t being creepy or anything, just enthusiastic”

“She had it handled,” Andy reassures, taking a leisurely sip of her orange juice. “I was on my way back when I was redirected to the antique store and we got the hell out of dodge. She was fine.”

They relax back against their chairs, except Booker who holds his hands out for the problematic porcelain peacock. He blinks at it for a moment when Nile relinquishes it, turning the base towards Booker so he can see the maker’s mark of the crossed swords and then –

“Oh, oh fuck” he curses as he sees exactly what’s wrong with it.

“Oh fuck is right”

“Nile, I’m sorry” The kid’s got a good eye, the imperfections that give away it’s not the genuine article are there, slight but there.

“We –“ Joe sounds likes he’s choking he’s laughing so hard, and Nicky’s biting his lip, eyes gleaming “We have no idea what’s going on but keep going Nile, I’ve never seen anyone die of embarrassment”

“Fuck off Joe” Booker retorts with a heavy sigh. So this is what she’d meant by immortality and historical integrity. “So IDs aren’t the only things I forge. The ‘20’s, the 1920s” he clarifies, “were good for selling knock-offs tourists into revivalism. A couple of Coptic jars here, some Meissen porcelain. I, uh, like making things”

“ _Really?”_ Christ, but Nile angry is a holy terror.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?” the joke falls flat, as he knew it would but he’s got nothing else.

“So you like ripping off ordinary, hard-working people with your advantages?” Nile still struggles with the way they keep the lights on in between jobs sometimes, pickpocketing, and so on, even if they’re pretty Robin Hood about it. Even his forgeries go to rich dicks only, even back then, who have more money than sense. He says as much.

“That doesn’t make it right! Because what if they sell it on to a good person, then you’ve ripped _them_ off!”

“If you spotted it’s a fake, I guarantee anyone worth their salt at Sotheby’s or Christie’s can too, so hopefully it has never come to that,” Booker makes a mental note to get Copley to check though, just in case, “would it make you feel better if I told you the money went to charity and relief efforts?” 

“Did it?”

“Yes, actually.” Nicky informs her because the man is a literal saint “During the Depression. Did a lot of good”

“Oh” and the fire goes out of Nile, her back hitting the chair back, as she processes this new information. Then, before he knows what’s happening Nile has rounded the table and launched herself at him and it’s a sweet embrace but not of death, just Nile’s arms around his neck as she pulls him into a tight hug, her slim frame on his lap.

“You fucker” Nile hisses happily into Booker’s collar, “How’m I supposed to be mad at that? This was my turn to rake you over the coals and you ruin it” and he feels his shoulders drop, hands coming up to return her hug, unable to resist the urge to press a kiss to the side of her head. Their lion-hearted girl. She leans back, takes the peacock, and moves it to the centre of the table out of danger of being knocked off.

“I’m surprised you didn’t crack me over the head with it,” he says over the top of her head, pondering the care she’s taking with the fake. It’s only from the 1920s.

Nile leans away so she can look him in the eye. She looks horrified. “You made it. I wouldn’t throw away something you made” He cradles her closer and no-one says anything if his eyes get red, just a little.

****

After a bit of searching, he finds the real one, as luck would have it in the attic, because yes he remembers now, he’d kept it around as a reference point, carefully away from the forgeries in case he mixed them up while drunk. Thank God for small mercies, he didn’t want to spend months trawling various safe houses for the thing.

He goes to the local store and buys a pretty wrapping paper as part of his apology for not only destroying art’s historical integrity, Jesus wept, he’s gonna miss Andy when she’s gone, but also sort of invalidating the team’s birthday present because none of the others had known it was a fake.

So now he’s stood in front of the master bedroom door, sick to his stomach with no idea how this is going to go down when he thinks ‘fuck it’ and knocks.

The door swings open to reveal Nile, soft with sleep and so _young_ in a pair of Wonder Woman pajamas, watching him with interest.

“Hi, Book. Everything okay?” the revelation of what he did with his ill-gotten gains seems to have taken the wind out of her sails on the whole forgery front, and he wonders what she thinks they do for money sometimes. Not every job they take pays and they don’t accept anything for rescue missions.

“Er, I got you something. To make up for my lack of historical integrity”

Nile takes the box he holds out with a bemused smile, turning away and carefully plying a nail along with the paper, because she likes the wrapping paper in France and Italy and won’t tear into it, the way his boys had done when they were little, and sliding the box out. Booker shyly shifts into the room and watches her face carefully.

She gasps sweetly when she pops the lid off the box. “Is this-?”

“The real one, yeah” he confirms, voice rough.

“Oh, Booker! You didn’t have to you know” He did though. Not just because it was Nile who is still way too forgiving, but because he’d accidentally invalidated the group gift by not spotting some fake artefact and removing it. Nile lapped up historical artefacts, reviving their own appreciation in turn, it wasn’t fair to damage that. It wasn’t worth the unhappy set of Joe’s mouth, or Nicky’s disquieted eyes, or Andy’s distant stare. 

“Thank you!”

As he watches, Nile places it on her dresser by the window, so it sits parallel to the fake, in front of a framed canvas, a view of the Grand Canal which is unmistakeably Joe’s work. He’s promised to take her, Booker knows. There’s a beautifully carved figurine of the head of Michaelangelo’s David which he knows comes from Nicky and one of Shakespeare’s First Folio’s which will be from Andy.

Pieces of the family, so that even if they’re not together as they are now, even when Andy’s gone she can look at these and feel close to them. The beginning of her own little cache of things worth holding onto as she walks through history.

His eyes are getting itchy again. A smile quirks at the corner of Nile’s mouth when she catches him.

“Booker,” she murmurs before her eyes take on a mischievous gleam because the others are rubbing off on her, as she holds her arms out for him again, “D’you want a cuddle?”

It startles a laugh out of him, at the way she’s ripping the piss but would probably actually cuddle if he asked. Not that he will “I’m over 200 years old Nile, I don’t cuddle” Hugs yes. Cuddles no.

Nile just snorts “Joe and Nicky cuddle and they’re older than you. _Andy_ cuddles, though she won’t admit it. Hey Andy!” She shouts through the door, going out into the corridor.

“Nile-“

“YEAH KID?” Andy’s voice bellows from the living room

“Are Nicky and Joe down there as well?”

“YES?”, “HERE, NILE” Joe and Nicky’s voices echo back to them.

And Nile makes sure she has Booker’s eye, eyes glinting as she opens her mouth once more “BOOKER NEEDS CUDDLES”

“ _Nile_! I DO NOT-“ he shouts at the ceiling, although why he tries to have a reputation anymore is anyone’s guess.

“BOOKER NEEDS A WHAT-“

“Bet you 15 grand I can get everyone in a cuddle pile before you get downstairs,” Nile tells him a split second before she takes off running.

Booker adds forgery to the list of things he is never, ever doing again. But when he gives chase, he can’t help smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Booker’s swearing spree translates as Oh fuck it, god fucking dammit, Nicky you gourmet son of a bitch
> 
> I used google translate so please forgive any inaccuracy
> 
> My tumblr url is @meet-the-girl-who-can if you want to come say hi!


End file.
